Chapter 4

Alec’s POV continued-

“I was thinking that we should reach out to the other packs again and ask them about the activity in their territories. Also I want to ask if there have been any banishments lately we might be unaware of that could be leading to the increased number of rogues. We could let them know about our theories and see if that tracks with what is going on over there too.” I tell him.

“Those are very good suggestions, son. I know you have the right mind for this job. We can get on that throughout the week. This also brings up my reason for wanting to talk to you.” I had an idea this conversation was coming but I was hoping it would be something else.

“And what would that be, Dad?”

“We both know you are mentally ready for this job, I want to retire, and you’ve asked for the responsibility previously. My conditions haven’t changed and I wanted to know where your head is at with those conditions.” Last year I told my dad that I was ready to take over the pack and he disagreed. Most Alphas take over between the ages of 18 and 19 when our wolves gain the most power and the previous Alphas stay on as a kind of advisor for a few years before they ‘retire’. I’m 20 now and I still don’t see why he’s making me wait. His conditions for me taking over are either that I finish my degree, which I could do while I’m Alpha, or I find my mate. Werewolf mates are basically soulmates, not just a girlfriend or boyfriend. Our deity, the Moon Goddess, looks at the souls of wolves and pairs us with the one that would be our other half. The perfect match, even if we may not see it at first. In order for us to be able to recognize our mate without any doubt the Moon Goddess made signs to watch out for. We can recognize their scent and there is also the physical sign where the touch of a mate feels like a charge of electricity. A mate's touch and scent will also calm the other wolf and bring peace when needed. Since mates are the completion of one soul put back together, mates can not only mindlink but can also feel each other’s emotions and reactions and they make each other stronger. This last part is why my dad wants me to find my mate before I take over. I would become stronger and my mate could help keep me level headed and help with pack duties. My mate would become our pack’s Luna, kind of like a queen to humans. Fated mates can be hard to come by sometimes, especially if they’re not from the same pack. There are different events packs hold throughout the year to intermingle so single wolves can find mates from other packs. If someone doesn’t want to wait, they can forgo their fated mate and take a chosen mate instead, but the physical benefits wouldn’t be as great and the connection not as strong.

“I’m working towards my degree, all my prerequisites are done and I’m on track to graduate with my degree after the end of the fall semester next year. One semester early.” I don’t tell him I could get my degree at the end of this year if I push it with winter courses, because spacing it out will not only benefit my mental health but also give me one more season of eligibility to play football. I know it will be my last chance to do anything competitive just for fun. “I still believe there shouldn’t be any issues with finishing classes while also being Alpha. I wouldn’t be the first to do it and definitely not the last. On the mate issue, we both believe it would be best to wait for my fated mate. I’ve been looking but haven’t found her yet. There’s nothing else I can do to speed up the process. I’m not taking a chosen mate. I don’t want to, and even if I did, my wolf wouldn’t let me.” Gage has told me that he wouldn’t accept a chosen mate if it was forced on us, something again we both agreed on, but his word held more weight in the mythical world. Without my wolf I wouldn’t be able to mark my mate. Marking not only shows every other wolf who is mated, but it also completes the mate bond and helps fuse the two souls together. I don’t question the magic behind it, I just know it works. And so does my dad. He and my mom are fated mates and he felt the pull of the mate bond and what it did to them, especially after they were fully mated and marked. I know he really wants that for me too.

“I understand, son, and I get it. A chosen mate is not what I would want for you either. I just don’t want to hand everything over to you without making sure we do everything we can to avoid any push back from any other Alphas or councils. I don’t want anyone having a reason to think you wouldn’t be the strongest for the position.”

“But that is exactly what you’re doing Dad! I know you want to try and make this easy for me, but this isn’t supposed to be easy. I don’t want everything just handed over to me because I am your son. I want to earn their respect, and the longer you hold out the weaker it will make me look to others. Almost like you don’t have faith I could do the job since there are plenty of other Alphas that got their role younger and without a mate, who still don’t have the traditional education that I do.” I can tell my response takes him by surprise. I usually just nod my head and let him believe his reasoning.

“I guess I didn’t really look at it from that angle. I can see your point. I’ll look into things on my end and see what everything looks like right now, and we can discuss things further next time,” and with that he nodded his head, dismissing me for the night.

“Thanks Dad,” I say as I get up to leave. For the first time in a long time I feel like something positive came out of one of these meetings. My dad really is a great Alpha, but sometimes he can be too protective with his family. That is why I was so surprised that he actually let my sister Lexi go to school in another state. To her credit though she laid out a foolproof plan and proposition for why he should let her go. She is the brainy one and was able to go to one of the best technical schools in the country. Both of my parents were very proud of her. The only catch is that none of the great schools are close. She had already managed most of the tech we ran in the pack, but she had a creative side too and managed to make some cool modifications to some of the gadgets we were using and also make some new ones that we could use to protect the pack. She was even able to get a patent and sell one of her designs which brought a ton of money into the pack. That was her big selling point on getting my dad to let her go. It’s what’s best for the pack, she told him through batted eyelashes as she finished her spiel. She knew she had him then. Sometimes I wish that was all it took for me to get what I want. At least after today, it seemed like I was able to get him to see the flaws in his thinking for holding the title back. Maybe it won’t take him as long as I thought.

As I was leaving the office I received a link from Noah, one of our warriors that was watching the holding cells. The rogue had woken up and was being taken to interrogation. For wolves, interrogations tend to be a lot more physical than human interrogations. At least that’s what I think based on what I’ve seen on TV. We don’t have to worry about lawyers and silly things like unnecessary force. Since we heal so fast we have a little more leeway on getting, let’s just say, more aggressive than humans can. When I get to the interrogation room it’s all set up with the tools of the torture trade, but hopefully it won’t come to that. The rogue is tied up to a chair with silver chains to make sure that he doesn’t heal too quickly and can’t shift into his wolf to attack us during questioning. From the look of disdain on his face when we come in, it doesn’t seem like we will be getting any answers right away. I sigh as I sit down in the chair across from him and figure I might as well just try and go in guns blazing just in case.

“So what are you and this rogue pack doing near our lands?” The momentary look of shock on his face before he remembered what we were doing was enough to tell me that we were on the right track with our line of thinking in our meeting. But it still didn’t tell us the why or what they were doing running like they are. After he regained his composure he went back to his glaring and stayed silent. “Ok, you don’t like that question. How about this one, who is leading you?” Again nothing, although I could hear a slight uptick in his heart beat. He was getting nervous. “Look, I don’t want to have to hurt you. It’s clear we have some knowledge of what’s going on which means that some of you have already talked (Lie) and since you haven’t seen any of your fellow rogues back in your pack, it means the ones that didn’t talk were killed and the ones that did have been protected enough to be safe from the rest of you. So I ask again, who is leading you and why are you here?”

“You’re lying!” he shouted back. “Nobody could talk,” he says as he starts to slightly tremble.

“What has got you so afraid that you would risk all of this pain and torture just to keep someone else’s secret?”

“Who says there’s a secret? I was just talking to a hunter before he flipped out and started chasing me.”

“Nice try but hunters don’t just talk to rogues, especially ones like you. They just kill. So come on, tell me what really had you all the way out here.”

“It doesn’t matter what you know, it won’t help you.”

“I don’t know about that, we’re a pretty smart and powerful bunch. We’ve gotten this far, been around this long…”

“Nobody can tell you anything no matter how much pain you put us through so you might as well just kill me now!”

“OK, so you’re just the expendable hired help that they don’t trust enough to tell anything to, is that what you’re telling me?”

“What?! Hell no I’m not some nobody!”

“Oh so just not important enough to know any important details. I got it.”

“Fuck you! I know lots of important shit!”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Well I know that…” he trails off and it looks like his voice gets caught in his throat. He looks up to me and his face goes deathly pale. Then out of nowhere his eyes start to roll back in his head and his whole body starts to convulse.

“What the fuck?!” I say as he starts to foam at the mouth like a rabid dog. I have no idea what to do so I mindlink my warriors that have been waiting outside to come in and help me take this guy to the pack hospital.

“Oh shit!” I hear Tanner say as he comes in. “That’s what the last guy looked like when he killed himself. What the hell happened here?”

“I have no idea. I was trying to trap him into giving something out and it looked like it was about to work when he started going all epileptic on me. I swear it looked like he was having a seizure. Help me get him to the doctor.”

“Ok man but it’s not gonna help. This is what the last guy did and he was dead within 30 seconds. I’m telling you just like those old spy movies with the cyanide and shit.”

“Yeah but I was right here, he didn’t take anything and he stopped mid sentence, right before he was getting to the good stuff.”

“I don’t know what’s going on but this definitely isn’t normal,” Tanner says as we both look down to the now still, and most likely dead, rogue.

“Let’s take him to the hospital anyway. I wanna see if they can do an autopsy on him and see if there was anything in his system that might have a delayed reaction or something.”

“Sure thing boss man!” Tanner calls out to Noah and they both take the rogue out of the room and towards the hospital. This definitely seemed off. I’ve been through and/or seen my fair share of interrogations during my time preparing to be Alpha, but I’ve never seen something like what happened here.

I mindlinked the pack doctor on my way to my room to let them know that situation and to inform me when the autopsy was complete. I started to think about everything the rogue said. It wasn’t much honestly, but I kept thinking there was something I was missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it but the way he said what he did kept gnawing at me for some reason. I really doubted what he said about the hunters for obvious reasons, then again Dean was always kind of a wildcard. He seemed like the golden boy on the outside but I knew he had a scheming side to him. My freshman year he tried all kinds of things to get me in trouble with the coach. No matter what I would do he would find something wrong with it and spin it to the coach to make me look bad. It wasn’t really anything completely malicious but he did it enough that it just pissed me the fuck off. If he could find a way to use a rogue to piss me off without someone getting hurt I wouldn’t put that past him, but I do know that if it puts someone in danger he wouldn’t do it. He wasn’t that much of an asshat. Ugh this situation just keeps getting to me. All of our interrogations are recorded so tomorrow I’m going to get the video from my father and review everything again. Maybe a night’s rest will give me some better perspective.